Stuffed Eggs
Boil six eggs very hard. Peel them, and after having sliced a bit off of each end to make them stand well, cut in halves and extract the yolks. Rub up the yolks with a pinch of pepper and salt, melted butter, bread crumbs, and finely chopped celery. Fill in the whites nicely, stand on end in the pan, lay bits of butter on each egg and bake.--Mrs. D. P.
A baked, buttered ancestor of the cold deviled egg, from a book that assumes the cook knows how long to boil an egg and how hot her stove is. The quantities are all left to judgment, so the notes below fill in the gaps.
- The hinge: don't overcook the whitesEverything here is already cooked, so the bake is only to warm the filling and brown the butter on top. Ten to twelve minutes at 350F is plenty; longer turns the whites tough and rubbery.
- "Rub up"Means mash and work smooth with the back of a spoon or a fork, not whip. The yolks of six eggs will take roughly 2 tablespoons melted butter and 2 tablespoons fine crumbs before the mixture stiffens past filling consistency.
- Bake temperatureNone is given; the recipe says only "bake." Ten to twelve minutes at 350F suits the job.
- Bread crumbsNineteenth-century crumbs meant stale bread grated or rubbed through a sieve, drier and finer than fresh crumbs from a food processor. Dry crumbs absorb the butter and hold the filling together; fresh ones will make it pasty. Store-bought fine dry crumbs work.
- The celeryChop it very fine and use the tender inner ribs or leaves. Raw celery does not soften in ten minutes, and coarse pieces will make the filling stringy.
- Standing the eggs on endTrimming a sliver off each end is what lets the halves sit upright in the pan, an arrangement that keeps the filling from sliding and makes a taller presentation. If you would rather lay them flat, cut lengthwise instead and set them in a dish just large enough to keep them from tipping.
- YieldSix eggs give twelve halves: a first course for four to six, or a supper dish for three with bread and a salad.
- Easy peelingOlder eggs peel more cleanly than very fresh ones. Cool the boiled eggs in cold water before shelling so the whites stay intact enough to hold the filling.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housewives, is full of short recipes signed with initials like this one, each a household's own way of doing a familiar thing. Stuffed eggs of this kind long predate the book; the technique of hard-boiling eggs, mashing the yolks with seasonings and returning them to the whites is documented in European cookery well before the nineteenth century, and the name "deviled" attaches to it in English usage as a general term for anything sharply seasoned. What distinguishes this version is that it is baked and buttered rather than served cold, and that it is bound with bread crumbs, which stretches six eggs further and gives the filling body without mayonnaise, which is generally thought not to have become an American staple until later. The celery adds crispness of the kind the dish depends on.